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That Nude Photo Was For My Boyfriend: Dispatches From the Stop Watching Us Protest

The NSA protest was messy, disorganized, and wonderful
All photos by author

"Pick a song off that list, something protesty but not too hard," she tells me, handing me her Galaxy Note.

I scroll through the list of songs she has queued up on YouTube, nothing immediately jumping out at me. I don't want to blow this.

I'm in the "Anonomobile," a massive RV that's been painted jet black with a sky blue stripe allowing for words like "GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY" and "INTELLIGENCE" to be painted in big block letters. An "Occupy" flag hangs in one window and a huge Guy Falkes mask is painted between the windows.

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We're (very) slowly circling Union Station in Washington, D.C., site of the largest of today's Stop Watching Us rally, and God knows how many decibels of sound this machine and the various speakers pointing out its window are capable of producing.

A couple thousand people are gathered with signs that say things like "Yes We Scan" and "Unplug Big Brother." In a few minutes, they'll start marching from Union Station, down E Street, and eventually make their way over to the National Mall's Reflecting Pool.

They are Occupiers, Tea Partiers, activists, tourists, people who just happened to be standing around. They are Anonymous members and people dressed up in Halloween costumes and lobbyists and people who like protesting just to protest. There are Muslims and Christians and Atheists and men and women and black people and white people. They are regular people.

There are representatives from companies here. Groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Mozilla, Reddit, Demand Progress, Fight for the Future, and the ACLU.

One old woman said she heard about the protest this morning on Drudge Report. Some asshole has one of those "Impeach Obama" posters with our President wearing a Hitler mustache. People are ignoring him.

"This is a blanket issue that's affecting everybody equally," Kymone Freeman, of DC's We Act Radio and one of the event's organizers tells me. "Surveillance is equality."

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Scott, a Tea Party member from Northern Virginia who wouldn't give me his last name, says it's got the look and feel of a Tea Party protest, with a lot more beards and Vibram Five Finger shoes.

"This issue sidesteps a lot of the problems we might have with the left," he said. "I've had a couple conversations here, I'm enjoying myself. A lot of people have come up to me and said 'Amen Brother.'"

There's a pull-cart rigged with tribal drums and a biker pulling two rocket launcher-shaped speakers blasting freedom music.

Michael Pendleton, a house painter from Tallahassee, is here. He started walking towards Washington state to protest NSA spying back in August and "just changed directions" when he heard about the Stop Watching Us protest.

"I just wanted to put my money where my mouth is. I've been moaning and groaning and bitching for a long time and I was like, you know what, I'm going to do this and show people I really mean what I say," he said.

Some guy is wearing a homemade, papier mache'd Obama mask and is carrying an "Obama cam," which will double excellently as a Halloween costume in a couple days.

Some people are blaming Bush, some people are blaming Obama. Dozens of people carry huge banners with the text of the First and Fourth Amendments. Everyone is mad.

"Those nude pictures were for my boyfriend," one woman's sign reads. "Now you know why we wear masks," says another.

Christine Ann Sands, the poet who bought and renovated the Anonomobile, the woman who has been driving it around the Northeast in advance of the Million Mask March, another anti-surveillance protest set to happen on November 5, says she got involved after Edward Snowden leaked NSA documents. So did Freeman.

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"I got started like everyone else. When Snowden's story broke, I realized, if it's not the police, it's somebody trying to watch you," Freeman said. "We're doing what we can to make as much noise about it and not go peacefully into the darkness."

Sands asks me if I've picked a song yet.

"Another Brick in the Wall? Is that OK?" I ask her. Honestly, it's the only song on the list I'd heard of.

"Works for me," she says.

I click it. She's got a half dozen PA speakers pointed out at the audience. The Anonomobile is capable of drowning out the crowd, who, at the moment, is shouting "Wire tap? Fight back."

Out comes a Kelly Clarkson YouTube ad. Not exactly the sound of a revolution. Sands quickly switches to a song about Chelsea Manning.

Somehow, it doesn't matter. A few minutes later, I'm walking with Freeman down E Street. We're about three blocks from Union Station and we're already off course. The whole thing is messy, disorganized, and full of energy.

"I don't know why we came this way," he said. "I guess we're just trying to stretch this out."

Also see:

How to Make Protest Music the NSA Can't Ignore

See more photos from the protest here.

Watch VICE's coverage of another Washington, DC, rally from a few years ago: the Rally to Restore Sanity.